BigBlueButton has been a huge contributor in the E-learning field for more than a decade now. BigBlueButton, the first open-source web conferencing system, is seen and witnessed all around the globe to be one of the most effective open-source web conferencing platforms available in terms of cyber-security and data privacy, to this day.

After releasing multiple alphas then betas updates, adding new features (emojis-raising hand-upload presentation etc..) and fixing bugs, this whole new update seems to be different from the previously released updates.

Do you want to find out how? By the end of this article, you will find everything that concerns BigBlueButton 2.3.0 update, closely pay attention to the following, here’s the new features in BigBlueButton:

• Video: voice activity video sorting, technically, here’s what that means:

Added stream sorting based on voice activity (voice switching, last N, paginated last N, call it what you want). Works with or without pagination enabled, transparently. Based on video floor heuristics from FS with configurable transition timers (based on a number of audio frames). BigBlueButton made video stream sorting extensible and configurable.

• Change Audio Input / Output: giving user the ability to change audio input/output.
• New icon: Bigbluebutton has put in place a new icon that detects and shows potential connection issues
• Whiteboard individual: Move Raise Hand Functionality to Actions Bar Button access
• Polls: Editing poll options via drag and drop, adding poll abstention.
• Notifications: Waiting guests users audio and push alerts, add notification when mic is muted while speaking, notify users when presentation is available for download
• Recording: Significantly faster recording processing
• Chat: More performant chat via New HTML5 react-based player
• Presentation: Non-blocking presentation upload, add ability to switch presentations via actions menu (Presenter)
• Webcam: Multiple cameras support, extend webcam placement to left/right of presentation.
• Random user selection
• Audio stats: It monitors the users’ audio connection stats and prompt on issues regarding package loss and/or jitter. Both thresholds are configurable in yml.

Accordingly, these are the new features in the new BigBlueButton update that will potentially improve UX in the open-source platform and improve its usability to its wide range of users.